Tickets

I’m spending four mornings this week in fascinating meetings about ticketing systems. The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, which opens in 2014, needs to sell tickets, and the arts groups that will use the Tobin Center are interviewing companies that create these systems. Simple? It used to be, but like many other aspects of our lives, the Internet has transformed the simple act of buying a ticket to a performing arts event.

There is a big legal fight going on right now (click here for a New York Times article about it) over paperless ticketing. This fight is over ticket reselling. Web sites like StubHub lets ticket holders resell their seats. Many of these seats are available through folks that are doing this for a living. We used to call them ticket scalpers and find them standing in front of a sold-out stadium or auditorium whispering, “Tickets, I’ve got two tickets.”

In many states, the act of reselling a ticket used to be illegal. It is not in Texas. Is this good? Here is an example from last season. I got a call from the offices of Ballet San Antonio (we collaborate with them for performances of The Nutcracker) because one of their patrons was furious that we were charging over $200 per seat! Of course we were not. But, a ticket re-seller was. This patron did a Google search and came up with a site of a ticket reseller. If they had gone to the Symphony’s web site, their single ticket purchase would have been sold through Ticketmaster and they would have been charged about $25 for that seat! The ticket reseller made their web site look like it was a site approved by the Ballet and the Symphony, but it was not. The Symphony sells all our subscription tickets through our offices, and sells single tickets through Ticketmaster. Even if you buy your single ticket at the Symphony offices, that sale is now going through Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster is the required ticketing system in the Majestic Theatre. It may be the system in the Tobin Center, but there are other options.

The ticket reselling question is interesting, but not the focus of our meetings this week. I’ll leave that debate to the folks that sell tickets to Lady Gaga concerts. We are focused on what options give the customer the best ticket buying experience, and how these systems will make it possible for us to manage the process.

For example, one system allows a patron to buy specific seats online. When you go to buy your seat an interactive seat map comes up. Not only can you click on any seat you want, you can also see the view of the stage from that seat. Other systems currently only have the capacity for the patron to select a section of seats and the computer assigns the best available seat. Sounds like the first system is much better? It is, but it isn’t so simple. For example, should a patron be able to purchase seats 4 and 5 in row X, (if seats 1 and 2 are already sold) and leave seat 3 empty? That would give them more elbow room because few patrons buy single seats. Most folks come to concerts with their spouse or friends and leaving single tickets empty can reduce the inventory sold in the best sections. So, should the computer system require you to purchase seats adjacent to the currently sold seat?

What about transferring your seat? What if you are a Symphony subscriber with two seats and you find out four hours before a concert that your spouse doesn’t feel well enough to attend that night, but you still plan to go to the concert. You bought your subscription tickets months ago and your friend lives across town. It is a hassle to have to drive together and you don’t want to stand out in the rain in front of the Majestic waiting to give them their ticket. (This scenario assumes that it may someday rain again in San Antonio. I have my doubts!) In some new systems, you can email your ticket to a friend, even if it is part of a subscription package. The system creates a new bar code for that seat and allows your friend to reprint it at home. This re-coding is important because it prevents accidental double seating.

One of the very cool features of these systems is the integration of the web (especially email) to ticketing. This allows arts organization to send out very targeted sales messages based on past sales history. Don’t you hate getting email ads for products you don’t want? Well, what if the Symphony could send out an email ONLY to those patrons who attend piano concertos? The system could query the sales from past seasons and only send a special discount offer to folks who don’t subscribe, but frequently buy single tickets when we feature a piano soloist. You can do this manually, but who has the time? This kind of custom marketing is only possible through great database systems.

We are also looking at which system makes it easier to purchase add-ons. For example, it would make intermission go much smoother if you could purchase a drink voucher with your concert ticket. Lines for folks needing change would be reduced. What about purchasing online from multiple arts organizations in one transaction? Next season the Symphony and 11 artistic partners are participating in a city-wide Beethoven Festival. Some systems make it easy to buy Beethoven Symphony No. 9 from the Symphony and also a concert of solo piano sonatas from the San Antonio International Piano Competitions without having to charge your credit card two times. In some designs, this is impossible. You’d be required to go into the ticketing web site twice. That might reduce sales.

Here was a feature that I found fascinating. One system tracked patrons who visited a concert page, but did not purchase a ticket. The next day, it allows the Symphony to automatically buy an ad for that concert on CNN.com. That ad only shows up on the computers of patrons who visited our site within 24 hours. It makes online advertising much cheaper and effective.

The future of arts marketing and quick pace of change in Internet behavior are an ongoing challenge. Right now Facebook rules the social media world, but will it be Google Plus by next year? Which ticketing company has the capacity to adapt to all these changes?

I remember a few years ago, most patrons were afraid to use online ticketing systems. Now, they are becoming the preferred method of sales. Some orchestra have even stopped printing sales forms in their season brochures, because most patrons read about the concerts in the printed brochure, but then go to the web to buy their tickets. Whatever happens in this ticketing system decision, the future is clear. Patrons will demand more control over their purchasing decisions. If arts organizations can’t keep up, sales will decline.